Identification of important clinical variables for the severe course of COVID-19 in hospitals: A systematic review

Infection with the new coronavirus transformed the world from 2019 onwards. The severity of this respiratory syndrome caused by SARS-Cov-2 has divergent opinions on the causes of injuries and deaths. The objective of this study was to identify factors in the sociodemographic and clinical profile that are possibly related to COVID-19 cases that lead to hospitalization. This is a systematic review, in which the search strategy was defined by the acronym PECOS. The search was carried out in the scientific reference databases: MEDLINE via PubMed, Cochrane Library of Cochrane and; in specific databases: EMBASE via Elsevier and LILACS. Observational studies of the prospective cohort type without the use of filters were included. Exposure was considered as hospitalization for COVID-19 with a positive test and the individuals not exposed were those hospitalized with unconfirmed suspicion. The monitoring of the cohorts carried out by the studies lasted an average of 77.6±54.8 days. The mean time of infection of the patients was 9.5±22.32 days with a mean isolation period of 9.5±4.81 days. The symptoms commonly presented by the exposure group were: fever 787 (2.84%) cases, headache 658 (2.37%) cases, cough, sore throat, decreased appetite, headache, diarrhea. Factors such as age, 41.16±11.27 years; Non-essential occupation (79.79%) and medium and low education were evident in the exposure group. Respiratory diseases (0.22%), p= 0.045 and chronic kidney disease (0.08%), p= 0.038 were characteristics of the clinical profile for the exposed individuals. It is concluded that individuals with characteristic flu-like symptoms and diarrhea, with a profile of non-elderly adulthood, lower education, with non-essential occupation and who have characteristics of respiratory diseases and chronic kidney disease are more likely to be hospitalized for COVID-19.